Terry Prone: My virtual customer service shoots itself in the foot
An avatar with blue hair promised the issue would be escalated to their regional team and was there anything else she could help me with? 'You didn’t help with any previous queries; you’re not helping with this one.'
Originally published in the Irish Examiner.
A couple of years ago I bought sheepskin slippers in Lidl, dirt cheap. Not that I was going to actually wear them, mind you.
Nothing so unglamorous would ever touch feet which have a profound sense of entitlement to 4in stilettos. But I have this wheelie bag containing things I’d never in my right mind put on, but which is a kind of luggage insurance policy against hospitalisation.
If you suddenly end up in hospital, you need a bag with a clean (or new) nightdress for starters because, although you may sleep at home in ratty old T-shirts and panties, that will not do in a bed in Ward 3. Nor will 4in heels.
So when I saw the slippers in Lidl, I believed they were headed for the emergency bag. Trying them on at home and discovering their blissful comfort was a surprise which led to me wearing them often in my home and also when gardening. They went into the washing machine several times and — after drying on the windowsill stuffed with paper towels — came up as good as new.
That was why, when I spotted the exact same dead-ringer slippers in the Lidl catalogue a fortnight ago, I was ecstatic.
Even more so at their price: €17.99. I might, I thought, totally lose the run of myself and buy one brown pair and one black pair.
Bank holiday Monday, when these slippers were going on sale, I fruitlessly searched for them, then asked a man packing the shelves for help. He obligingly slashed open several cartons with a Stanley knife, revealing neatly-stored slippers. Slippers, but not as we wanted them.
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